Do The Broncos Have A Sean Payton Problem?

Photo Credit: Justin Edmonds, Getty Images

Embarrassment.

The Broncos have had no shortage of it since Super Bowl 50. From missing the playoffs the year after winning a championship, wasted draft picks, faulty hires, to a seemingly endless quarterback carousel that may well continue spinning after the 2023 season, the Broncos are on an impressive stretch of futility.

And yet, somehow, they might have had their most embarrassing moment of the last seven years on Sunday.

The bad blood going into this game needs no introduction. The Jets’ hiring of Nathaniel Hackett- last season’s Broncos head coach and one of the largest mistakes that Denver has made in the last few years- gave this game a storyline before the season even started. When the Jets acquired QB Aaron Rodgers, this game then was penned as a marquee matchup. But things went to another level over the summer, thanks to one Sean Payton. 

In an interview, Payton lambasted Hackett and his work as the Broncos coach, calling it “One of the worst coaching jobs the league has seen.” A war of words between Denver and New York ensued, with Jets players criticizing Payton for his comments and some of Hackett’s former players coming to his defense. Payton proceeded to walk back his comments and said he would contact the Jets to apologize, though this reportedly did not happen. Hackett addressed the comments briefly, saying that Payton broke the coach’s code, but otherwise downplayed the situation. But regardless of both men’s attempts to diffuse the conflict, the damage was done, and both teams took this game personally. The Jets played with their hair on fire all day on sunday, even with their defense facing injury woes and their offense struggling. This game was a tight contest for most of the day, but the Jets passion and team play ended up winning them the game, and New York got its revenge. The Jets won the offseason war. Hackett got a game ball afterwards. It was a happy plane ride back to New York.

On the other side of things…This is the lowest point the Broncos have been at in some time. And yes, I’m fully aware they got 70 hung on their heads a couple weeks ago. That loss put them at 0-3, with the slightest glimmer of hope that there might be room to turn this thing around. That glimmer is gone now. This team is, as the kids say, cooked. The playoffs are no longer a feasible goal for this team. The rest of the season should be about finding which players can contribute to long-term success instead of playing for short-term success, and that is a massive disappointment given where expectations were at the start of the year. But the reason this loss is so bad isn’t due to the actual play of the team, or the sheer embarrassment of whom they lost to: It’s because the reason they lost is also the most important man in the building.

Photo Credit: Jack Dempsey, AP Photo

Sean Payton coached his worst game of the season on Sunday. In a year where the Broncos defense has quite literally been historically bad, Payton’s offense is the reason the Broncos lost to the Jets. Baffling isn’t quite the right word to describe Payton’s game plan for this one- inexplicable or absurd are closer fits. In a game where the Jets were facing several key injuries, especially in the secondary, the Broncos offense seemed to involve the receivers as little as possible. Jerry Jeudy forced his way into the game late, but finished with 50 yards. Courtland Sutton was only targeted 3 times and didn’t register a catch until the last drive of the game. Marvin Mims finished with one catch for four yards.

Shifting the game plan to focus on different players is one thing. Phasing out a position group completely is something else, and something that makes little sense given how this game progressed. Things did seem to be working in the first half, when the Broncos offense has been at its best. But when the second half rolled around, the lack of explosion was evident and the offense turned back into a pumpkin, as it has so many times before. For as good as Payton is as a scripter and how good his opening drives are, his apparent inability to adjust when defenses get a read on what Denver is doing is maddening. Payton’s MO and the reason he is hailed as such a bright offensive mind is his ability to adjust and create offense in any scenario. That ability seems to have disappeared, and it is impossible to count on the offense in the second half as a result.

Payton has also made some moves off the field that are, at this juncture, not panning out. He essentially took over free agency for the Broncos, and handed out some big contracts to players that are underperforming so far. Defensive tackle Zach Allen was brought in to replace DT Dre’Mont Jones, and though he had his best game so far on Sunday, his production on the whole has underwhelmed. Ben Powers has been a fine if not spectacular addition at guard. The largest disappointment has been offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey, who got the largest contract of the bunch, but has been a legitimate liability in pass protection. 

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

What happened on Sunday was completely avoidable and on Sean Payton’s hands, in multiple facets. Though Denver lost the game on offense, their defense also collapsed in the second half. And though Payton doesn’t run the defense, he did hire the man who does in Vance Joseph. The problem isn't that Payton had faith in Joseph, because he did a rather admirable job in Arizona the last few years; The problem is that he hired Joseph to run a scheme he isn’t familiar with, and a defense that was one of the league's best last year is now completely hapless. And we can’t forget about Payton’s offseason choices that made this game so important to New York. When Payton decided to publicly bash Hackett, he lit a fire under that team that played no small part in Denver losing this game. Furthermore, Regardless of how poor Hackett’s coaching was, Payton’s decision to blast one of the most beloved, respected coaches in the business in the manner he did was questionable at the time, and those questions loom very large now.

And so begs the question: Is this experiment going to work?

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My early read is that while it’s too early to tell, I fully expect Payton to have at least two years at the helm. While this thing hasn’t worked the way anyone had hoped thus far, the truth is it probably doesn’t matter yet. After devoting an absurd amount of capital to make Payton their head coach, it seems incredibly unlikely that ownership will fire him after one bad season; The public embarrassment of Hackett’s tenure probably factors into that. It is still extremely early in Payton’s tenure, and while it’s started almost as poorly as possible, 5 games is definitely not enough to enact a vision, or shape a roster around said vision. No matter what happens the rest of the way this season, I think ownership will give Payton the resources to fully build this team his way. These Broncos are a bad team, and they will almost certainly continue to be a bad team, but I think it would take something absolutely drastic for Greg Penner to can his guy after one season. Drastic, in my view, meaning finishing with a worse record than last year’s Broncos. Then again, Sean Payton just got outcoached by the guy who led that team, so anything’s possible. It’s certainly October around these parts, because things are getting real spooky in Broncos Country. And if they don’t pull out a minor miracle in Kansas City Thursday night, things may get downright frightful.